Rockbox Developer Conference - Euro Edition! 2009

Date and Location

When: June 19-21 2009

Where: Ghent, Belgium, at Dekimo (http://www.dekimo.be) Brusselsesteenweg 708 9050 Gentbrugge - view from the air

Who

These people are going to show up. Please add your route/airport and expected time of arrival.

• Developers / Staff
  • PeterDHoye
  • FrankGevaerts - (probably) car. Can pick up people at Brussels Airport
  • AlexParker - Train (arrives 17:00 at Gent, leaves Sunday sometime :))
  • DominikWenger - Plane and Train. (Fr. 11:00 at Brüssel, So. 20:00 at Brüssel)
  • AustinAppel
  • BryanChilds - Train and Train (Not sure of times yet)
  • DanielStenberg (arrive Fr 14:00 at Brussels Airport, leave at Su 19:20 from Brussels)
  • BjornStenberg (same as Daniel)
  • MarcoenHirschberg - Train
  • JensArnold - Car. (arrive Fr afternoon, will stay a few days in Belgium afterwards)
  • BertrikSikken - Train
  • ThomasMartitz - Arrives with JensArnold but leaves with a flight Sunday (Su, 19:40 from Brussels).
  • MarianneArnold - Arrives and leaves with Jens
• Non-Staff / Users

Agenda

Since we can code and IRC at home, too, we should focus on helpful group activities.

Friday:

• arrival of the "international" participants, get to know the people, learn the names, have a Belgian beer
• setup web camera(s) and gathering room
• build towers of Rockbox

Saturday:

• code, chat and meetings

Sunday:

• code, chat and meetings
• departure of international participants
• cleanup the place

Ideas for discussion:

• RSB. Any point? Change? Vote?
• "Supported". Clear definition of when to call a device supported. RBUtil integration one of those requirements?
• Release schedule/planning. Does it work? Should we continue like this? What to improve?
• Thoughts on how to decrease the amount of (rotting) patches/bug reports?
• Use of the rockbox logo by third parties, such as the Lyre project.
• IRC ops. Do we need more? Who?
• Ideas for implementation of the WFMS (radio screen)

Ideas for hacking:

• flesh out a new embryo for distributed builds, see BuildServerRemake
• AMS Sansa hacking, e.g. fix e200v2 radio problem, look into clip/m200v4 playback stops
• Get basic RDS working on the beast
• A Giant-DevCon-Commit: Replacing all or at least most occurrences of (void)var to use __attribute__((unused)) in the function's parameter list, a maybe more saner way of getting rid of warnings.

Infrastructure

Bring your own laptop and DAP devices of choice. Dekimo has enough power outlets for wall-wart chargers. A USB hub might be helpful. A webcam for friends who can't attend physically would be great (see below).

Feel free to add extra things onto this list if you feel it is necessary (such as unported targets/etc)

• Archos Player - DominikWenger, FrankGevaerts
• Archos Recorder v1 - AustinAppel, JensArnold
• Archos Recorder v2
• Archos Recorder FM
• Archos Ondio FM - JensArnold, MarianneArnold
• Archos Ondio SP - JensArnold
• Gigabeat F - AustinAppel, BryanChilds, AlexParker, FrankGevaerts, MarcoenHirschberg
• Gigabeat X
• Gigabeat S - BryanChilds (out of comission currently though), AlexParker, FrankGevaerts
• Gigabeat V
• iAudio M3 - JensArnold
• iAudio M5 - MarianneArnold
• iAudio X5 - FrankGevaerts, JensArnold
• iPod 1st gen - JensArnold
• iPod 2nd Gen - JensArnold
• iPod 3rd gen
• iPod 4th gen Grayscale
• iPod Color/Photo - JensArnold
• iPod Mini 1st gen
• iPod Mini 2nd gen - FrankGevaerts, JensArnold
• iPod Nano - AustinAppel
• iPod Video (5th gen) - FrankGevaerts
• iPod Video (5.5th gen) - BryanChilds
• iriver H1x0 - DominikWenger, AustinAppel, BryanChilds, AlexParker, FrankGevaerts, MarcoenHirschberg
• iriver H3x0 - PeterDHoye, AustinAppel, FrankGevaerts
• iriver H10 5/6GB - PeterDHoye, FrankGevaerts
• iriver H10 20GB
• Samsung YH-925GS - ThomasMartitz
• Sansa c200 - AustinAppel, BryanChilds, AlexParker, FrankGevaerts, BertrikSikken, MarianneArnold
• Sansa Clip - AustinAppel, FrankGevaerts, BertrikSikken, ThomasMartitz
• Sansa e200 - AustinAppel, AlexParker, FrankGevaerts, BertrikSikken, ThomasMartitz
• Sansa e200v2 - DominikWenger
• Sansa Fuze - ThomasMartitz
• Sansa m200 - AustinAppel (will check version later)
• Sansa m200v4 - DominikWenger, AustinAppel
• M:Robe 100 - DominikWenger, FrankGevaerts
• Zen Vision:M
• Meizu M6 - FrankGevaerts, MarcoenHirschberg
• Meizu M3 - AlexParker, FrankGevaerts
• Cowon D2 - FrankGevaerts
• Onda VX747
• Logik DAX - AlexParker, FrankGevaerts
• GoGear HDD6330
• GoGear SA9200
• Archos AV340 - AustinAppel
• Webcam
• LED pig - BertrikSikken

• Decent camera(s) for posterity - PeterDHoye has a DSLR and a FULL HD camera, AustinAppel (DSLR), BryanChilds (DSLR), FrankGevaerts (DSLR+compact)

• WebCam for live feed? - BryanChilds has a VX-1000 Lifecam, would probably work better on a windows PC. PeterDHoye has a Fujifilm Finepix 602 that can be configured as webcam - should give good quality. Tripod available too.

• Basic Tools, paperclips, soldering stations,... are available at Dekimo

• FrankGevaerts will bring the official rockbox USB tracer.

• Espresso machine? (Dekimo only has a normal coffee maker - still better than a vending machine though) FrankGevaerts could bring a Nespresso machine

Beer

There is a big beer shop nearby (warning ugly website, at least the beers are good)

How to get there from the airport

• In the airport, go to the lower level, indicated also with a railway symbol
• Take the train (online planner), time is 1h to 1h30 depending on the one you catch. Direction is Gent-Sint-Pieters, sometimes called Gand-Saint-Pierre by the French)
• Get off at Gent-Sint-Pieters (this is indicated in the train by LED panels)
• Go outside and take bus 96 (direction Aalst)
• Whilst driving on a 2x2 lanes road with tram rails in the middle, get off when you see an ALDI shop on your left. Or ask the driver. Drive time is about 20 minutes.
• Right across the busstop and the ALDI, you will find DEKIMO at number 708.
• Best to give me a ring when you get there
• If several are arriving together at the station in Ghent, I can come and pick you up by car.

Ordering train tickets at home, pay with credit card

NOTE: When coming with the Eurostar, there's a big chance your ticket allows you to travel to any station in Belgium within 24H, so you probably don't need to buy another ticket!

• Go to http://buy.b-rail.be/eTicketing/ETicketOrdering/welcomePage.jsp (language selection on top left)
• click 'Buy your ticket'
• select 'TICKET FROM AIRPORT (BRU)'
• From station: ZAVENTEM-NATIONAAL-LUCHTHAVEN
• To station: GENT-SINT-PIETERS
• fill in date
• fill in your details
• pay

Train schedules on friday

The fastest direct trains are every hour at HH:52, the second option is a train where you have to switch trains in Brussels (train stops in three stations, you can switch in any of the three), these leave at the airport every hour at HH:04 and HH:36. Warning: there's a fast and a slow connection leaving at HH:04, make sure you have the fast one, difference is 30 minutes! FrankGevaerts passes by the airport, talk to him, maybe he can offer a ride.

Bus tickets

• Buy them at a vending machine
• Buy them from the driver
• send an SMS with text DLG to number 4884

NOTE: since there will be enough cars, we will not be needing public transport, so no extra cards are needed. If you arrive at the station, I may pick you up there, give me a sign in advance

How to get there by car

• Drive direction Ghent
• Either you approach Ghent via the E17, or you switch to it in the E40/E17 crossing
• Take exit 10 Gentbrugge
• You arrive at the 2x2 lanes road. Turn Right
• Pass a crossing with traffic lights. About one km further you will see the ALDI (big letter A) on the left. Slow down, Dekimo is on the right.
• Turn up the driveway and drive past the front building, there is plenty of parking space at the back
• Best to give me a ring when you get there

Currency

Euro. If you need a currency converter, there's one here.

Language

Local language is Dutch (or rather 'Gentsch'). Expect at least some people to speak English or French

Hotels and Room Sharing

Two rooms with 4 beds and one single room have been booked at hotel Lepelbed (1.5km from Dekimo). The price for the 4-bed rooms is 30 euro/pp/night. The single room is 78 euro/night.

• (bigroom #1) FrankGevaerts
• (bigroom #2) AlexParker
• (bigroom #3) DominikWenger
• (bigroom #4) AustinAppel
• (bigroom #5) DanielStenberg
• (bigroom #6) BjornStenberg
• (bigroom #7) MarcoenHirschberg - is used to sharing rooms with rockbox devs
• (bigroom #8) BertrikSikken
• (single) BryanChilds - want a room to myself please.

This is a nice modern hotel, not a hostel. So no need to bring sleeping bags and linnen. The 2 big rooms are on the second floor right below the roof.

Checkin needs to be done before 20:00, but that means just getting the keycards for the doors and the code for the frontdoor. Access to the hotel is 24/24

Post-DevCon

Ghent is a nice city to visit....

Summary

RSB - stays just for the case it's actually gonna be needed. We do the voting again in July, 1 year since the last time.

Supported players - we "lower the bar" for entry to the club. Rbutil and manual are not required, fairly stable and documented install mechanisms are required. A target would need to be useful for daily use for music listening.

About the Release schedules: there was a discussion about the frequency where some raised concerns about us releasing too often. The outcome was however that frequency is fine enough. It better not be synced with devcon though. We should start with formalized RC builds, provide "test list" for users/testers to mention that they have tested a target and what specific details they stested. And rbutil should get support for the RC builds to make it easier for users to test them. Rbutil should display "use manual install" for supported Targets without rbutil support.

How to deal with rotting patches: introduce a formal commit template for commits, to recognize patch providers easier (git-style inspired). Close more issues as "out of date" ? Tracker cleanup weeks after releases.

Use of the rockbox logo by third parties - "We ask that you only use the Rockbox logo to inform people that our software runs on your product, and try to ensure it's clear that the Rockbox project is an independent project not associated with any specific hardware or software group."

IRC ops. Do we need more? Yes. Who? All committers. scorche brushes up the guidelines in the wiki

Forums - more experts is wanted. We should continue to notice sharp people and suggest them for expert badges. We should also treat no feedback on such suggestions as "no objections" and then proceed accordingly after like a week.

New web site - not good enough atm. Ideas and suggestions bounced around. No definite outcome.

While FM Screen - Bertrik wants to work on it. Ideas bounced arounds. No one objects. Bertrik gets to play.